On 9 January 2026, first-year students of the double-major graduate study programme in Information Sciences, accompanied by Prof. Damir Hasenay, PhD, and Ines Horvat, PhD, visited the National and University Library in Zagreb and the Croatian State Archives as part of a field trip for the course Methods of Preservation of Paper-Based Materials.
The Head of the Department of Preservation and Storage at the National and University Library in Zagreb introduced the students to the Department’s work. Department staff demonstrated examples of conservation and restoration procedures routinely carried out, as well as methods of protecting materials using archival-quality supplies. The students had the opportunity to see the equipment used in the Department’s daily operations, as well as the process of preservation imaging and the creation of digital copies of materials held by the National and University Library. During their tour of the Library, the students also visited the closed-access storage area and the Library’s Print Collection.
This was followed by a visit to the Croatian State Archives in Zagreb, which included a tour of the Archives building and its Central Laboratory for Conservation and Restoration. The laboratory tour began with a brief theoretical introduction to the history of paper, after which the students had the opportunity to observe restorers at work, including the removal of impurities and the specific requirements of working with cartographic materials and bindings. Laboratory staff also highlighted the cultural value of conservation and restoration and the potential for research into written heritage. The final part of the visit consisted of a guided tour of the Archives building, during which the students visited the reading room, the lending department, the catalogue card room and the professors’ room.
The field trip gave the students a clear insight into professional practice, successfully complementing the theoretical knowledge they had acquired in the course Methods of Preservation of Paper-Based Materials.
Martina Hranić, Barbara Mihaljik, Maja Vučković, Tina Jakić and Ana Kovačević
